North Yorkshire police today hit back at a new report which claims crime is running at much higher level than is being officially acknowledged.

The survey was carried out by Experian, a private marketing company, also says people living in smaller towns and cities like Harrogate and York are more likely to be burgled than big cities like Newcastle.

Tony Lidgate, of North Yorkshire Police, said the force was aware some crime was going unreported but said that was taken into account when the strategies were developed. "We do not simply rely on statistics when it comes to directing our resources," he said.

"If for example a bobby reports that vandalism is a causing a lot of concern in a particular area then we will take action - even if when we look at our records there have perhaps only been two incidents reported.

"We do know that people do not report crimes but we would encourage them to do so because our detection rate in North Yorkshire is good - we are detecting about 25 per cent of burglaries."

Mr Lidgate believes quantifying unreported crime is a near-impossible task and said because North Yorkshire's towns and cities were relatively small individual criminals could have a huge impact on the crime rate.

"Particularly car crime and very particularly burglary arouse very strong feeling in people and quite rightly so," said Mr Lidgate.

"It is awful to come home and find someone has been in your private space. It is the sort of thing that stays in your memory and so when people are asked about burglary on an anecdotal basis they do tend to say rates are high.

"That casts a shadow over this sort of survey."

But Experian stands by its research, which it says, gives an accurate picture of patterns of crime in Britain.

"We carried out 40,000 face to face interviews with people chosen at random in their own homes," said spokesman Bruno Rost.

"It is an extremely robust piece of research that has been bought by the Home Office and is being used in conjunction with their crime statistics to sort out the allocation of resources in combating crime."

l York crime victims are to be offered a new service to help them deal with both the emotional trauma and the practical consequences of their experiences.

Victim Support, a voluntary organisation covering both York and Selby, is launching a new drop-in service. Trained volunteers will staff the drop-in and are available to see people without an appointment being made.

Tessa Denbeigh, who co-ordinates the service, said the drop-in would be operated on a trial basis to gauge public interest. "Some people find it difficult to commit themselves to fixed appointments and we hope the introduction of a drop-in service will in part address this issue," she said.

Further information is available from Victim Support on 01904 636905.

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